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One Year in the Life of a Top Grossing Game: Operating and Growing Bejeweled Blitz

In "Bejeweled Blitz: One Year in the Life of a Top-Grossing Mobile Game," PopCap's Giordano Bruno Contestabile will discuss how Bejeweled Blitz made the jump from Facebook to iOS, and became one of the platform's most long-lasting success stories. Along the way, he'll explain how other cross-platform social game developers can emulate that success by combining smart game design, data analysis, and more.

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One Very Long Minute History of Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook & iOS December 2008: Bejeweled Blitz launches on Facebook November 2009: Blitz mode and FB Connect added to Bejeweled 2 iOS client December 2011: Bejeweled Blitz iOS launches as a freemium title 3+ years from launch, still consistently popular: • Facebook: top 10 games by DAU (3M+) • iPhone: top 10 highest-grossing games One of the first games to be fully integrated across FB and iOS

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Traditional PopCap model 3. Profit!!!1. Make game 2. Wait (years) for game to be made 3 YEARS

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Why We Changed• Every game we make is a service • Needs to be updated and improved over time• Every game we make is free to play • Reach 10x the audience, need regular events to keep engaged• The distinction between product and business has disappeared • One interdisciplinary team • Product innovation drives business innovation, and vice versa

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Key tenets• “Play forever”: no pay walls or limitations for non-paying users• Game is fun and balanced also without paying• Pay to have fun, not because the games forces or punishes you• Server-side code to tweak economy in real time• Events really important: busy marketing calendar

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Not all mobile players want to be social Approximately 18% of Blitz iOS …but over downloads have activated Facebook Connect… 40% of DAU use FB Connect• FB Connect was required to unlock full features• Launched “Universal Mode” in June 2012• FB-connected users tend to spend more